We have a sloped backyard, with the bottom near the house. Deb (my wife) would wistfully look at the drainage running down through the yard during rainstorms and wish for something like that on a permanent basis; I would explain nobody can just create a stream from scratch, not affordable, anyway. [If you know engineers, you know we speak about engineering outside our expertise just as convincingly as stuff we actually know about.] Then, at a home-builders show, there were TWO booths that not only had streams running — they had built them in the middle of a county fair building for a 4-day event.

Oh. Well, then!

Basically, there is a HUGE (~1000 gallons) underground sump full of water. Two electric pumps drive water uphill through two separate pipes, where they discharge into prepared stream beds (with waterproof lining under stones) and burble and flow around rocks and over short waterfalls. Noisy, but that’s a feature! We have remote controls for the pumps, run through our phones and tablets.

Rainfall fills in for evaporation most years, so the only cost is electricity, which runs about $10–$15 per week because we only run it when we can enjoy it.

[If you know engineers, you know we geeksplain about stuff with even minor encouragement! 😁]